The Calgary Herald Leger Poll is out but what does it tell us we did not already know? Not that it has a duty to show change, when there is none. Here are the results and the shifts since the last poll of those who identified as PC party supports...the key group:
Question:
If you could vote for the next Tory leader, who would you support?
Albertans PC Party - Supporters
Jim Dinning 18% 23%
Lyle Oberg 14% 16%
David Hancock 5% 4%
Ed Stelmach 5% 4%
Mark Norris 3% 3%
Ted Morton 4% 6%
Victor Doerksen 1% 2%
Gary McPherson 1% 1%
Other 3% 1%
Don't Know 37% 35%
Refused to answer/would not vote/spoil ballot 10% 4%
Source: Leger Marketing Margin of Error: 3.3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20
© The Calgary Herald 2006
So far "Don't Know" is running the most successful campaign at 35% support. The more extreme anti-campaign reaction of the refused to answer, would not vote or the "message senders" by spoiling ballots is down from 10% to 4% - still a significant condemnation of how the PC Party is doing reflecting and connnecting with its membership.
Dinning looks to be a cinch for a second ballot position and a second ballot looks inevitable as well. Oberg is the "rebel" but with a "cause" and a style of governing that no one feels very comfortable with...and for good reason. Morton is still the sleeper but a real threat for second or third place, depending if Oberg crashes and burns - or not! Morton support is almost subliminal but very substantially grounded in the evangelical movement and old line Reformers. They are below the radar but will show up to vote for their ideology as embodied in Dr. Ted Morton.
The remaining candidates are not out of it and campaigns matter but what happens to the Progressive element in the PC Party if the third place candidate is a distant third regardless of who that is? Alberta will survive but will we be in such a state of political flux that we are unable to effectively respond to the times of great promise - and responsibility - that stretch out before us?
I think the hard core PC party membership better start thinking seriously about how it regroups and progresses forward after the selection process because all signs are pointing to an early election in 2007 - whether Albertans like the idea or not. That means a provincial, municipal and likely federal set of elections next year and another set of revisited leadership issues for those whose party's lose in the elections.
Will all the King's horses and all the King's men be up to the task or do we get a bunch of factions all splitting off and into their own "realities" and the PC machine breaksdown.
I will soon post more "Send 'Em a Message" survey results on the evaluation of the government's performance in key policy areas. A bit of a preview - except for getting some positive credit for cutting taxes - it is not a pretty sight.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Hancock and Dinning are the Green Candidates
The Conservation Voters of Alberta, a consortium of Alberta's environental groups today endorsed Hancock and Dinning as "Two leadership candidates (who) are knowledgeable and open about environmental problems facing Alberta and they have given considerable thought to developing and articulating solutions to these problems."
Dave Hancock's Statement in response to the endorsement follows:
"I am very pleased that the Conservation Voters of Alberta have endorsed my 21st Century Environment Plan for Alberta in their announcement earlier today. Other candidates believe Alberta does a great job protecting its environment. I believe Alberta has done a good job protecting its environment, not a great job. We need to do a great job. It means setting standards on climate change and enforcing them and being a leader there. I am committed to being the leader that sets and meets those standards."
In areas where we have economic development activities, we must ensure minimal impact and damage is done, especially to wildlife habitat. Reclamation and restoration of industry sites, roads, and other fragmenting disturbances have to be redressed in a timely and consistent way, after industry activity has ceased. Doing this is an essential characteristic of good corporate citizenship in Alberta, and for those companies who don’t get it or who fail, refuse, or neglect to comply - there will be serious legal and financial consequences. We do not want to look into our grandchildren’s eyes when they ask what happened to their land, water and air only to say “we used it all up.” Saying we are sorry will not be good enough."
The "Send 'Em a Message" survey still shows the environment at the strongest priority policy issue driver for the 185 survey participants so far this week. Take a few minutes and do this survey and help send a message about what you feel must be the priority policy agenda for the next Premier.
Dave Hancock's Statement in response to the endorsement follows:
"I am very pleased that the Conservation Voters of Alberta have endorsed my 21st Century Environment Plan for Alberta in their announcement earlier today. Other candidates believe Alberta does a great job protecting its environment. I believe Alberta has done a good job protecting its environment, not a great job. We need to do a great job. It means setting standards on climate change and enforcing them and being a leader there. I am committed to being the leader that sets and meets those standards."
In areas where we have economic development activities, we must ensure minimal impact and damage is done, especially to wildlife habitat. Reclamation and restoration of industry sites, roads, and other fragmenting disturbances have to be redressed in a timely and consistent way, after industry activity has ceased. Doing this is an essential characteristic of good corporate citizenship in Alberta, and for those companies who don’t get it or who fail, refuse, or neglect to comply - there will be serious legal and financial consequences. We do not want to look into our grandchildren’s eyes when they ask what happened to their land, water and air only to say “we used it all up.” Saying we are sorry will not be good enough."
The "Send 'Em a Message" survey still shows the environment at the strongest priority policy issue driver for the 185 survey participants so far this week. Take a few minutes and do this survey and help send a message about what you feel must be the priority policy agenda for the next Premier.
Jim Flaherty Does the Right Thing
So it’s a matter of trust – income trust that is. There is lots the “Gnu Government of Canada” has done that I disagree with but the phasing out of income trusts is not amongst them. This is the kind of political action and courageous hard choices we need from government.
Income trusts were getting out of hand. They force a short term and shallow definition of business success plus a narrow planning and management perspective on those businesses. They reward the here and now at the expense of the future. Research and development, productivity enhancements, new technology investment, even maintenance, anything with any immediate cash demands can tend to get deferred if they drain the pool of immediately distributable cash from the income trust. Management gets rewarded on quarterly results and effective corporate tax avoidance. Nothing wrong with that if your view of the role of business and enterprise is shallow and superficial. We were just setting our selves up to be even more non-competitive and more quickly with the BRICK countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and Korea).
Sure it was a political promise broken. Perhaps the promise should not have been made in the first place because it was unrealistic. Income trusts were growing rapidly and part of the political drama in the last federal election. You will recall the campaign rhetoric about "leaks" from Liberal Cabinet Ministers about the future of income trusts and the “timely” intervention of the RCMP’s very public announcement of an investigation about the so-called "leaks"right in the heat of the campaign. Does anyone remember what happened or the current status of that investigation? Was it purely political?
Campaign promises have been broken before and for far lesser reasons. Trudeau beat Stanfield saying never would he institute wage and price controls and did it soon after winning. Chrétien was promising to abolish the GST…enough said. Both men won subsequent elections as I recall. I am not justifying breaking political promises. Just saying it could be worse. Look at this clip from the TV show Boston Legal about the American state of political culture and tell me if it is more of a documentary than drama.
So are political campaign promises really equivalent to Pulitzer Prize winning fiction? It really depends on the capability, conscience and character of the candidates at the end of the day. What unrealistic promises are bing made by PC candidates that will be broken once power is achieved. It is called the Catch 23 of politics. The skills necesary to become the leader are entirely different than those needed to be the leader.
An old mentor of mine once said “Sometimes you have to put away your ‘principles’ and do the right thing.” That is what happened yesterday with the Harper government and I for one, in this instance, applaud it.
Income trusts were getting out of hand. They force a short term and shallow definition of business success plus a narrow planning and management perspective on those businesses. They reward the here and now at the expense of the future. Research and development, productivity enhancements, new technology investment, even maintenance, anything with any immediate cash demands can tend to get deferred if they drain the pool of immediately distributable cash from the income trust. Management gets rewarded on quarterly results and effective corporate tax avoidance. Nothing wrong with that if your view of the role of business and enterprise is shallow and superficial. We were just setting our selves up to be even more non-competitive and more quickly with the BRICK countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and Korea).
Sure it was a political promise broken. Perhaps the promise should not have been made in the first place because it was unrealistic. Income trusts were growing rapidly and part of the political drama in the last federal election. You will recall the campaign rhetoric about "leaks" from Liberal Cabinet Ministers about the future of income trusts and the “timely” intervention of the RCMP’s very public announcement of an investigation about the so-called "leaks"right in the heat of the campaign. Does anyone remember what happened or the current status of that investigation? Was it purely political?
Campaign promises have been broken before and for far lesser reasons. Trudeau beat Stanfield saying never would he institute wage and price controls and did it soon after winning. Chrétien was promising to abolish the GST…enough said. Both men won subsequent elections as I recall. I am not justifying breaking political promises. Just saying it could be worse. Look at this clip from the TV show Boston Legal about the American state of political culture and tell me if it is more of a documentary than drama.
So are political campaign promises really equivalent to Pulitzer Prize winning fiction? It really depends on the capability, conscience and character of the candidates at the end of the day. What unrealistic promises are bing made by PC candidates that will be broken once power is achieved. It is called the Catch 23 of politics. The skills necesary to become the leader are entirely different than those needed to be the leader.
An old mentor of mine once said “Sometimes you have to put away your ‘principles’ and do the right thing.” That is what happened yesterday with the Harper government and I for one, in this instance, applaud it.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Are Political Parties Obsolete?
The recent Calgary Herald Leger Marketing poll is indicting less than 30% of Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta members are intending to come out and vote in the current leadership campaign. This is disturbing. Noting also that only 10% of Albertans hold PC cards and that number is anticipated to only double through the campaign is also disconcerting. This is not just a lack of the campaign resonance – it is a passive-aggressive resistance by citizens to the cult and culture of our current governance model.
The concentration of power over how we select the party leaders and potential Premiers of our province and how we bestow all that power and influence on that person is a bit scary. Especially given the pervasive and profound control the Premier has over our lives. One would think all citizens would be clambering to have a say in the outcome of this leadership campaign.
Political parties are the traditional way to have an influence and voting is the practical and most powerful way to participate in our democracy but it looks like they are both going the way of the dinosaur. Anger and angst of citizens is an energy source that can be identified, responded to, channeled and even used in a positive way to create change. Indifference, however, is the death knell of a system. And indifference seems to be the dominant driver of the Alberta citizenry's response to the current PC leadership campaign.
The fault for this indifference is to be placed squarely at the feet of the political parties, the PC’s in particular in this instance but I don’t believe any political party is exempt from culpability and citizen contempt. Fault is also to be shared by the elected political membership and its leadership. Citizen cynicism it is very much a consequence of the techniques used in modern political gamesmanship. Just go on line and watch the intelligence insulting negative ad campaigns of the midterm US elections right now.
Packaging the candidates from poll results, focus group pre-tested sterile messaging, dumbing down the discourse and always deflecting away from the real issues do not help. Look at the media frenzy coverage of tripe like who characterized who in a canine mode in a post coital pique in Parlament recently. It all serves to erode public confidence in the system and causes us to question the quality, capabilities and character of our governors.
What than is at the epicentre of the soul of the citizen today? Why is the political system so out of touch with people, with citizens? Some of it is induced indifference; some of it is fear of powerful vengeful players in politics. Some of it is the purely destructive concentration of power itself. Some of it is the adversarial nature of the political culture; some of it is the peddling of influence and the lack of policy transparency and political accountability. The list goes on.
OK we all know the homily of democracy being the worst system except for all others. I wonder if that is true for most citizens any more. I wonder where our collective social consciousness is headed. I wonder if we are eroding our social cohesion and distilling the collective synergy that serves to advance our society. I wonder where we are headed if we continue to distance our hearts, our minds and ourselves from our capacity to choose how and by whom we will be governed. I wonder who will show up to actually vote in this leadership campaign other than self-serving special interests.
Looks like those small cadre of citizens that do show up will be a breathtaking minority and an extremely powerful group that will effectively be setting the new rules for the rest of us. Can we afford to let this happpen? Do we dare allow the central tenet of our citizenship to be abject indifference about who will govern us?
The concentration of power over how we select the party leaders and potential Premiers of our province and how we bestow all that power and influence on that person is a bit scary. Especially given the pervasive and profound control the Premier has over our lives. One would think all citizens would be clambering to have a say in the outcome of this leadership campaign.
Political parties are the traditional way to have an influence and voting is the practical and most powerful way to participate in our democracy but it looks like they are both going the way of the dinosaur. Anger and angst of citizens is an energy source that can be identified, responded to, channeled and even used in a positive way to create change. Indifference, however, is the death knell of a system. And indifference seems to be the dominant driver of the Alberta citizenry's response to the current PC leadership campaign.
The fault for this indifference is to be placed squarely at the feet of the political parties, the PC’s in particular in this instance but I don’t believe any political party is exempt from culpability and citizen contempt. Fault is also to be shared by the elected political membership and its leadership. Citizen cynicism it is very much a consequence of the techniques used in modern political gamesmanship. Just go on line and watch the intelligence insulting negative ad campaigns of the midterm US elections right now.
Packaging the candidates from poll results, focus group pre-tested sterile messaging, dumbing down the discourse and always deflecting away from the real issues do not help. Look at the media frenzy coverage of tripe like who characterized who in a canine mode in a post coital pique in Parlament recently. It all serves to erode public confidence in the system and causes us to question the quality, capabilities and character of our governors.
What than is at the epicentre of the soul of the citizen today? Why is the political system so out of touch with people, with citizens? Some of it is induced indifference; some of it is fear of powerful vengeful players in politics. Some of it is the purely destructive concentration of power itself. Some of it is the adversarial nature of the political culture; some of it is the peddling of influence and the lack of policy transparency and political accountability. The list goes on.
OK we all know the homily of democracy being the worst system except for all others. I wonder if that is true for most citizens any more. I wonder where our collective social consciousness is headed. I wonder if we are eroding our social cohesion and distilling the collective synergy that serves to advance our society. I wonder where we are headed if we continue to distance our hearts, our minds and ourselves from our capacity to choose how and by whom we will be governed. I wonder who will show up to actually vote in this leadership campaign other than self-serving special interests.
Looks like those small cadre of citizens that do show up will be a breathtaking minority and an extremely powerful group that will effectively be setting the new rules for the rest of us. Can we afford to let this happpen? Do we dare allow the central tenet of our citizenship to be abject indifference about who will govern us?
Alberta Environmentalists Make a Choice for PC Leader
The Conservations Voters of Alberta, a coalition of Alberta’s pre-eminent environmental groups, will announce the results of their comprehensive analysis of the PC Leadership candidate’s environmental policies at a news conference at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
They will also be endorsing and making a recommendation on who to vote for based on an analysis of each candidates environment policy.
Who is the Greenest Progressive Conservative Leadership Candidate? This is a very important question on the minds of Albertans. The results of the “Send ‘Em A Message” survey on Policy Channel is showing the desire for government to better manage environment issues around water, land and air as the #1 public policy priority for Albertans. Just as critical to the candidate’s consciousness the survey finding that over 80% of participants rate the government performance in this area as Fair to Poor.
Go to the CVA website in the morning for the analysis and the endorsement results and I will comment on them in tomorrow a posting as well.
Now take a couple of minutes and do the Send ‘Em A Message” survey…it is time the citizens took back the public policy agenda.
They will also be endorsing and making a recommendation on who to vote for based on an analysis of each candidates environment policy.
Who is the Greenest Progressive Conservative Leadership Candidate? This is a very important question on the minds of Albertans. The results of the “Send ‘Em A Message” survey on Policy Channel is showing the desire for government to better manage environment issues around water, land and air as the #1 public policy priority for Albertans. Just as critical to the candidate’s consciousness the survey finding that over 80% of participants rate the government performance in this area as Fair to Poor.
Go to the CVA website in the morning for the analysis and the endorsement results and I will comment on them in tomorrow a posting as well.
Now take a couple of minutes and do the Send ‘Em A Message” survey…it is time the citizens took back the public policy agenda.
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